


I'll Be You

by hydesboy



Category: Jekyll & Hyde - Wildhorn/Wildhorn & Bricusse & Cuden/Bricusse, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Character Death, Jekyll and Hyde, Major character death - Freeform, hyde is gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:48:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydesboy/pseuds/hydesboy
Summary: Hyde has won, but his victory comes at a price, as all victories do, but at least he does not have to be completely alone (even if Utterson does not necessarily want this)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	I'll Be You

Henry Jekyll was dead.  
There was no body to fill an empty grave, no tears spent weeping behind silken handkerchiefs, nobody at all to mourn the passing of a man who had ruined himself in the pursuit of an unobtainable goal that high society pushed upon him until he went insane. He would have had to be wholly mad, for nobody of a sound mind would surely have been so willing to destroy himself in such a pitiful way.

Nobody noticed when he died, for his corpse still walked and talked, the pleasantries rolling off his tongue with a disgusting ease that made his skin crawl something fierce. He was not the kind, somewhat awkward yet passionate Dr. Henry Jekyll, no, he was the madman who's name was fresh on the tongue of the pious hypocrites that refused to see the stains upon their own soul.  
He was Edward Hyde, and now he was so wonderfully, gloriously free.

The wedding had gone off without a single bump in the proceedings, and many a damp eye had been happy dabbed at. But then the bride, the lovely Emma Jekyll (née Carew) began dressing with higher collars and longer sleeves, makeup thicker and her tone performative. Until the day her grave was prematurely filled.  
They said it was an accident, took a tumble and landed wrong, that she wouldn't have suffered. Preferable lies always did come easier than the bitter truths ever could. Although nobody spoke a word, the bruises upon her skin, like clouds tarnishing a summer sky, marking her throat, her arms, her legs spoke far louder than any words could ever scream.

It was only fair for a man to enter a mourning period following the death of one he claimed to love, but it was then that the second death truly took place. In his pain, it was easy for Hyde to destroy what was left of the doctor so he could claim the place he claimed he so rightfully deserved. Hyde wept that night, joy and sorrow becoming one in a burst of emotion with such an intensity it frightened even he.

When the man did, eventually, leave the house he appeared outwardly inconspicuous. Wielding the name of the dead man, hair forced back in a way that made it appear neat while tied away, and donning a pair of rather lovely round sunglasses, glasses with lenses so dark nobody could see there was anyone out of the ordinary hidden behind them. While it took more effort than he would like, he could even force a lightness into his ordinarily gravelly voice that sounded almost impressively like the man he had once been and would be no more. 

It was a foolish display of risk for him to let himself be seen by one that was so very dear to the doctor, however.

"Mr. Hyde, I presume?" was the very first thing that the lawyer said to him, close and casual enough for it not to raise any suspicion in the mind of anyone at all that so happened to pass them by.

Of course Utterson would recognise him, he was quite sure there was nobody at all in the world that had known Jekyll better, and this included the doctor himself. The lawyer was a pleasant sort of fellow, and Hyde could suppose he understood why the doctor had loved the dark skinned, mustachioed fellow as he did. But to be so readily identified set Edward's already incoherent mind abuzz with thoughts that he really would rather not find himself entertaining.

"Who would you like it to be?" the other returned, his voice lacking in anything at all that could be used to identify the speaker.

"Had it been Henry there would have been no need to ask."

Edward returned this with a less than dignified snort, one of which he got lucky with the fact it did not make him immediately start coughing. That would have been exceptionally embarrassing, and he would not have been able to handle that. It was all well and good that he could look like the doctor, but he refused to let himself sink so low as to behave like him beyond the absolute bare minimum required to get by without raising any alarms.

"Is he there?" asked the lawyer, a hesitance all to clear in his questioning, not wanting to hear the answer that he was sure he needed to know. Damned if he did, damned if he didn't, and no one gets off with light disposition.

"Would it make you feel better to think that he is, my dear Gabriel?" Edward Hyde purred, noting to some glee the way the other shuddered at this, a subtle and involuntary show of the displeasure he brought to the poor other man.

"Understood."

"Oh!" Hyde declared, something far too close to a laugh in his tone, "Don't look so glum, my man! I am his living legacy and is that not the most wonderful thing there is? Your sadness insults the memory of the man you claimed to love, for if you understood him you would realise he is not dead at all, but rather reborn into a delicious new life that mankind could only dream of! You should be proud of him, Gabriel, you should be shouting my name from the rooftops to honour the man he left behind in pursuit of a glory that no man could ever hope to achieve!"

The more he spoke, the more the terribly held facade he was clinging to fell apart. He clasped at the other man's shoulders, shaking in a way that caused them both to move, his voice growing louder and louder, the pace racing as if he had only a heartbeat to get the words he so desired out. His breath came fast and ragged, unable to fully catch even a single full breath, the feigned stillness of face he was trying to maintain wholly vanished, a twitching smile spread far too wide across his face, revealing crooked teeth that were far too sharp and far too numerous. If this was not disconcerting enough already, his face was far too close to the lawyer's own, uncomfortably warm breath huffing out with nowhere else to go but onto the poor man.

Understandably, Utterson recoiled, pushing the madman away as he took a step back. He was very much aware that the fellow had emotions that were prone to change at the drop of a hat, and he would much rather not have to meet the receiving end of one of his foul moods. Putting on a smile that looked very much believable, he brushed a lock of hair that had managed to escape from where the other had attempted to tie it away, tucking it behind his ear as he did his absolute best at not reacting to the fact he was very much aware of how unnaturally pointed it was.

"Yes, quite wonderful," the man replied, biting back the displeasure that was so very close to slipping out, "It is a shame that he is not here to celebrate his success, there has been so very little to celebrate as of late." The closest to a celebration that there had been was a wake, and there was nothing at all fun about a celebration of a person's life following their death.

"Then let us celebrate!" Hyde bellowed, hopping back and swinging his arms far wider than was societally accepted, ended in his hands thudding painfully against his chest, "Let us celebrate the life we are free to live, and those lives who fell before their time was up! Tonight! Come to be tonight and we shall while away the hours with all the wonders life can offer up to us!"

Hyde did not permit the man a chance to either accept or decline the hastily offered invitation. Without skipping a beat, he whirled around, coats that were just that little too large for him billowing in a way that was dramatic enough to thoroughly delight him, and took off. It was a marvel that he did not trip doing this, as he started off from an absolute still to an uneven run. He knew that the man would come, if not to see Edward as himself but at the very least for him to see what was left of the good doctor Henry Jekyll, not that there really was all that much of the doctor that was truly himself. It was a shame, but it was a self imposed prison that Edward Hyde absolutely refused to return to, so there was nothing left of the doctor that was not tenfold for the bestial man that was left when the doctor was stripped down to the core. The core, one would find, was not the good man that he pretended to be, and so as far as the man he became was concerned, the worse of the two was always the doctor for he pretended to be better than he truly was.


End file.
